Thriving Tanzania

— Tanzania is located in Eastern Africa and has been challenging the continent’s cacao clichés for a few years already.

Ora’s Thriving Tanzania is the first ceremonial cacao from Africa and what a joy to discover its taste and effects! An uncommon origin that invites for a delicious experience.

Discover its terroir below, and go through our tasting notes and effects feedback to learn more about this beautiful cacao!

Cacao Guide

Ora Cacao

"When drinking this cacao, we felt the drive for being active while feeling unplugged from our usual busy mind."

N.B. : This article contains an affiliate link leading to a 10% discount available for a first purchase. These advantages are here to compensate the time and work we put in our project. Yet, we’re dedicated to staying objective in our analyses.
Enjoy them if you want to try new cacaos while supporting us 🙂

Terroir

ORIGIN COUNTRY

TANZANIA

REGION

KILOMBERO VALLEY

POST-HARVEST HANDLER

KOKOA KAMILI

HARVEST YEAR

2021

BEANS VARIETY

[DNA-ANALYZED] – classic Trinitario (Amelonado + Criollo) w/ a hint of Neo-Nacional

STORY & INFORMATION

Beans used in the making of Thriving Tanzania come from 700 organic small farms (0,5 – 2 acres) located in the Kilombero Valley. The valley is bordered by Udzungwa Mountains National Park and Mikumi National Park, two incredible biodiversity hotspots. Cacao trees are grown amidst extensive rice and banana crops.

Just as for all the ceremonial cacaos Ora offers, beans are harvested by farmers and bought ‘wet’, still enveloped in their flesh. This allows for a controled and quality post-harvest process (drying and fermentation) as well as a higher payment for farmers than if they were to manage those themselves.

These steps are handled by Kokoa Kamili, litterally « quality cacao » in Swahili.

Based in Mbingu, the centralized fermentary and drying facility was built, among other important social factors, in order to raise what was once consider as « commodity cacao » to a much higher rank of fine cacao.

Beans of the valley had all their potential hiding inside thanks to good genetics and terroir. Yet they were navigating under the radar of the fine cacao market for a long time. Mainly because they suffered from poor post-harvest treatment, an approach that used to be focused on quantity over quality.

The African continent alone grows and export more than 70% of all the cacao consumed globally. With this astounding number come harsh realities — land, people and cacao suffer from this exploitation.
Fortunately, more projects focused on raising quality, improving cacao’s stewardship and farmers’ empowerment are rising, slowly trying to restore what was once a rigged balance.

Kokoa Kamili then pack and export the dried beans to makers such as Ora.

Jonas and his team can then transform those beans into pure ceremonial cacao discs, going through a minimalist chocolate-making process, aiming to preserve cacao’s compounds while expressing its best flavors.
The process comprises of light roasting, winnowing, grinding, conching and tempering.

Details

IN HANDS

COLOR – Brown
SMELL – Chocolatey with a hint of citrus and paprika notes
SHAPE – Discs

IN CUPS

COLOR – Light brown with orange hues
SMELL – Pear compote, macadamia nut, date, lightly woody
FOAM – Light brown to beige, thick

Tasting notes

Aromas:

First sips bring fruity and tangy aromas to our palates. The core note was a sweet kiwi, that then drifted towards fruity coffee shores, sprinkled with unripe strawberries. The aftertaste was an enjoyable macadamia nut.

Remarks:

Maintaining its reputation this Tanzanian cacao was a joy to sip. Interesting and evenly balanced notes make for a very accessible taste for anybody new to drinking ceremonial cacao.

Effects experienced

→ Motivating | Outward | Energizing

This cacao embarked us on a smooth journey. Enjoyable and turned outwards, its energy brought us lightness and mild euphoria.

Our attention wasn’t brought to any specific part of our bodies, we rather felt the drive for being active while feeling unplugged from our usual busy mind.

There was a tangible sense of personal motivation infused by this cacao.

A good setup in which we envisionned ourselves using it purposefully was for a hike in nature when having friends around. It also felt suitable for creating a personal bubble-like space and dive into a productive work session for instance.

We hope you enjoyed this content! If you’d like to try Thriving Tanzania, feel free to use our 10% discount by clicking this link, available on your first order.